Anyone notice PiP with solar panel won't come to US recently?

Yes there's an active thread on it: Some new information on the non-US bound solar roof | PriusChat

 

Welcome.
I would say the original PiP1 PHEV was actually selling well especially in California where most of the USA PHEV are sold. Toyota stopped selling PiP1 for unknown reasons, but my assumption is California wanted to mandate a greater EV driving range.

Keep in mind, California mandates Plug-in sales. That means there are $$ credits to auto companies that follow CA rules and sell the cars that CA wants to sell, and $$ penalties to those who fall short of the CA mandates. Also note that California gives free HOV (quicker commute) access to Plug_ins, and that is arguably the greatest sales incentive for Plug_ins in all of America.

I thought you were going to ask, why did the Gen3 solar roof pass USA roof strength test? while the Prime solar roof does not? That might be a good question.

 

it depends on your idea of 'selling well', but personally, think all phev sales are poor. we need higher gas prices in the u.s., otherwise, we're just not interested.

 

Considering the market, plug ins are doing well. I think the US is still the largest buyer of them.

 

Well, some reports are not that the roof is not strong enough, the car would be roughly $3000 more expensive, so it probably wouldn't sell well enough to bother. That is, bother doing all the extra tests required to bring it over. Pearl S has the solar roof (yes, ventilation only), and it's not really that useful. Cool, but whatever.

 

and yet, in another thread, someone was raving about it. but they don't live in canada.

 

The solar roof for ventilation was on some luxury cars before the PiP as part of a summer package. So likely only shipped to the Southern states.

 

It's a shame, I probably would have paid $3000 for the solar roof on my PiP (as long as it wasn't only available on the Advanced, since $7.5k for that package was too much for me). I miss having a sunroof.

 

I don't think this solar roof has a sunroof; the panel takes up the entire roof.
Sounds like it is an option on the high end trim in Japan.

 

didn't mazda used to have one?

 

I meant the sunroof from the 2010-2015 gen 3 Prius, not the new one. Unfortunately they didn't offer it on the 2012-2015 PiP due the weight limitations (likely for MPG).